


Destiny is a Funny Thing

by natsubeatsrock



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Gift Fic, gift for claireandelide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27152815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natsubeatsrock/pseuds/natsubeatsrock
Summary: Just when things seem to be going well for Prince Zuko, he gets captured by his sister (again) and placed in an underground cavern with Katara. Based entirely around their canon conversation in "Crossroads of Destiny".
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Destiny is a Funny Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [claireandelide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/claireandelide/gifts).



Destiny is a funny thing?

At this point, it feels more like destiny having fun at my expense.

The past three years have been painful. I've had my ups and downs in that time - mostly downs - but today takes the cake for the lowest low in the past few months.

And it started so well, too. My uncle's tea shop opened yesterday. I wasn't feeling well before today, but that's another story. Point is that I finally felt better and decided to start having a more positive outlook. This wasn't something I had been doing for a while. I figured that, if I was going to learn anything from not dying, it was to think that things could turn out for the better.

And for the most part, things were going well. I had been working in a tea shop with him for a while and had started getting the hang of it. There had to be other, better tea servers in a city like Ba Sing Se. But I did a pretty good job for someone with my experience.

And then, we got the news that the King of Ba Sing Se wanted us to serve him tea. It was like something you'd see in a play. We had only been in the city for less than a month and we'd grown such a reputation as tea servers to earn an audience with the King. Much more, my uncle was a former general whose greatest achievement - or failure, depending on who you ask - was his… less than successful siege of the city.

As we got to the palace he remarked, "Many times I imagined myself here, at the threshold of the palace. But I always thought I would be here as a conqueror. Instead, we are the Earth King's personal guests, here to serve him tea. Destiny is a funny thing."

"It sure is, Uncle," I remarked. Marveling at how this all seemed too good to be true.

Well, it turned out that it was.

We were set up. My sister, Azula, was the one behind it all. She planned the meeting as a way to get to us. I should have known. She tried the same thing on us earlier by telling us that our father wanted us to be back together. We were almost made prisoners.

This time, she caught us again, but I wouldn't accept another defeat. While my uncle made a distraction, I decided that I would try to take her on. Positive outlook, remember?

You can imagine how that went.

After being captured by special forces, I was led down a set of crystal catacombs as a prisoner. One of the guards said something about "Old Ba Sing Se" or something. As I was led into the cave they planned to keep me in, I couldn't have imagined how things could be made worse.

As they threw me in the cave, I found the answer to that question.

Katara, I think her name is. She's a girl about my age from the Southern Water Tribe. And, until recently, I was trying to capture her friend, the Avatar. As you could imagine, she wasn't happy to see me.

Though, there was something else to make her have disdain for me specifically. A few months ago, on our search for the Avatar, I found a necklace that belonged to her. I guess she lost it during some type of fight. When we met again, I tried to bribe her with it to no effect. And after using it to get to the Avatar, he took it from me. I could tell that she had it back, from the last time we met, which was not long ago. Though I doubt that she didn't hold that against me still.

I did my best to ignore her scornful glare. However, if I hadn't been on the other end of her water bending attacks, I'd think she was trying to set me on fire with her mind. I didn't have to think hard to imagine how she felt about me.

"Why did they throw you here?" she demanded.

To be honest, I wasn't quite sure of that myself. 

If Azula was behind this, she probably wanted to send me back to the Fire Nation as a prisoner. If that was the case, she'd have to know that my uncle was probably going to find a way to rescue me. Either she knew that and was using me as bait to capture him or she planned on capturing him some other time. 

But, then there was the issue of the Earth Kingdom warriors who caught me. The Dai Li. I saw them capture Jet a while back and hadn't seen him since. What was Azula doing working with Earth Kingdom soldiers? Did they have any reasons to get me and my uncle?

I didn't expect Katara to understand that. She was shocked to see the same guy who tried time and time again to capture her friend thrown in the same prison as her. I doubt she would have wanted to listen to me. Even if she did, she likely wouldn't have believed me. She almost definitely wouldn't believe that I saved the Avatar from Admiral Zhao or that I rescued his bison not too long ago.

Her next accusation proved as much. "Oh, wait, let me guess," she continued. "It's a trap. So that when Aang shows up to help me, you can finally have him in your little Fire Nation clutches!"

Does she think I'm working with Azula? Doesn't she remember us fighting? That was literally the last time we saw each other.

Then again, I can’t exactly blame her. She must think that we’re working together to try and catch the Avatar. That, whatever was causing us to fight before wasn’t as important as trying to capture the Avatar.

As if my search for the Avatar wasn’t tied to his honor. As if I didn’t need to find the Avatar to regain everything he lost three years ago. 

As if I hadn’t spent the past few days thinking about whether I even wanted to continue that search in the first place.

Then the thought occurred to me. The Avatar wasn't with her. By the sound of it, she didn’t know where he was. It was likely that he left the city. After all, I did free his bison not too long ago. That opened up several questions that I needed to know the answers to.

Why was she still here? Was the earth bender I saw joined their group with her as well? Did she know where we were? Are there any other earth benders she knew in the city? Most importantly, could we get out of here and how?

But, I couldn’t ask her. She wouldn’t answer. She’d probably think I was still trying to find out where the Avatar was.

Out of everyone in that group, why did it have to be her? The Avatar and that other girl would probably have been able to bend a path for us to escape from out of here a long time ago. While her brother couldn’t bend and likely didn’t have much love for me either, I bet he would have been more willing to hear him out if it meant getting out alive. Even the bison would be grateful for me freeing it from the Dai Li.

"You're a terrible person! You know that?” her verbal onslaught continued. “Always following us! Hunting the Avatar! Trying to capture the world's last hope for peace!"

That much wasn't exactly inaccurate. I had been spending the past few months trying to find the Avatar and return him to the Fire Lord. Until recently, I thought that the war was a way for an admittedly extreme means to an ultimately noble end. We had an amazing culture and wanted to share that with the rest of the world. I was starting to realize that the people in those other cultures almost definitely hated us. Even if we were to capture the Avatar and win the war, the Earth Kingdom citizens would still resist us, not to mention the Water Tribe we were unable to defeat, even at their weakest.

If that was all she had to say, I wouldn't have a reason to object.

"But what do you care?" she continued. "You're the Fire Lord's son. Spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood!"

That was an accusation I couldn't let slide.

"You don't know what you're talking about, " I protested, turning towards her.

"I don't?" she asked.

No, she didn't.

"How dare you."

Oh, that was easy.

Even baring my recent change of heart, her statement would ignore that being the Fire Lord's son didn't magically make the flames that the Fire Lord himself aimed at me magically miss my face. Where did she think I got the scar from? A kitchen accident? I doubt she would guess it came as the Fire Lord’s personal seal of disapproval of me, but you'd think it was at least a sign that maybe I didn't have the best life before we met.

And it wasn't even as if all I had done during our time was chasing them around. I certainly did good things. I helped a poor town in the Earth Kingdom. I freed their bison. I rescued the Avatar from Admiral Zhao.

And, even if I hadn't done those things, my uncle - the Fire Lord's brother - certainly wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was. He had a… complicated past. But he had been trying his best to go in a different direction. And I've been recently realizing that he might have been trying to get me to make a similar change. Whatever "evil to the core" gene she had to be talking about had to have skipped him down the family line, and he was the one who would have been the Fire Lord if things were different.

I might have said as much if given the chance. However, she continued.

"You have no idea what this war has put me through! Me personally!"

I don't know why, but I started to look back at her when I heard this. This was a side of her I hadn't seen. It reminded me of when I rescued the Avatar and he tried to talk with me. It was as if, at that moment, we weren't enemies.

Then it occurred to me. This day must not have been going well for her. No doubt, she was also a victim in whatever Azula was planning. She didn’t ask to be a part of whatever Azula had in mind. And now, she was in danger, possibly along with the rest of her friends. I could only imagine how this day could get worse for her.

It was then she dropped the bomb.

"The Fire Nation took my mother away from me."

Her mother. Taken from the Fire Nation.

How could that have happened? The raids on the Southern Water Tribe were years before either of us were born. Was she originally from the Northern Water Tribe? Something didn't make sense about this.

Still, as I turned towards her, I couldn't deny that Katara, now crying, was telling the truth. This was hardly the time to sort that out. I felt I needed to say something. So I said the first thing that came to mind.

"I'm sorry. That's something we have in common."

I wasn't sure if she would believe me if I told her about my mother. How I lost her as my father became the Fire Lord. How she was the only person, besides my uncle, who really knew, understood, and loved me.

But, for some reason, part of me wanted to.

I thought back to my conversation with the Avatar. He told me about a friend he had about 100 years ago. His name was Kuzon and he was also from the Fire Nation. He asked if I thought we could have been friends if we had met then. 

I didn’t give an answer to him then. At the time, I didn’t want to think about the possibility of me being friends with the Avatar. I only cared about capturing him and returning home. Restoring my honor was my highest priority.

But now I was actually starting to entertain the idea of being friends with the Avatar. What would it be like if I was a part of their group? What if I could help share in the pain of losing a mother? Who knows, what if I were to help the Avatar learn fire bending?

Imagine that. I spend months trying to capture him and end up teaching him how to fire bend.

Destiny really is a funny thing, huh?

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that was certainly out of my wheelhouse. Thanks for giving this story a look!
> 
> Since my last rewatch of ATLA, I've sat with this scene a lot. I thought about what this moment would be like for Zuko. I came to the realization that, at the start of it, it would probably have sucked for him to be in. I wanted to convey that and provide a launching point for Zuko's eventual joining of the Gaang.
> 
> As for what happens after this, I leave up to you the reader. Does this take fall in line with the canon set of events or do things change from here? This does take place at the "Crossroads of Destiny"...


End file.
